Dear Acid Attack Survivors, This Hospital Has Got Your Back

Love is a beautiful emotion but sometimes it takes a mutated form, which is not only scary but very dangerous. We have heard a lot of stories about spurned lovers turning to bottles of sulfuric or nitric acid to maim, disfigure or blind their love-interest who are mostly women, believing that it would take away the looks and along with that the confidence of the victim. The poor victims have to undergo skin grafting and other cosmetic procedures in order to lead some-what normal lives.

But neither the survivors nor the nation is ready to give-in to such inhuman acts of jealousy and bullying. A lot of steps have been taken to rehabilitate the survivors and help them lead fulfilling lives. One such step is now acid attack and burn victims, they can get hair transplant done free of cost at Government Stanley Medical College Hospital. This programme was inaugurated on Friday by S Ponnambala Namasivayam, hospital Dean, where she inaugurated a three-day live hair transplant workshop for burn, accident attack victims in collaboration with Atijeevan Foundation, which works for acid attack survivors.

This workshop is the beginning of hair transplant procedures that the department is going to do. Through this workshop, we want to train doctors on hair transplant and also create awareness among people that such transplants are being done here free of cost- V Ramadevi, head of plastic surgery department of the hospital said to Indian Express.

In the three day workshop, Dr Vivek Saxena, a Lucknow based cosmetic and plastic surgeon, taught twenty plastic surgeons from the Institute for Research and Rehabilitation of Hand and Department of Plastic Surgery, the techniques to perform such procedures. The survivors, who had lost their hair and eyebrows to burns, underwent hair transplantation at the live surgery which was also streamed live to 100 other doctors seated in another room.

Doctors from MMC (Madras Medical College) and Kilpauk Medical College were also a part of the camp and workshop along with them several doctors from other parts of the state too attended it. This would not only help them to get the required skill so that they could conduct surgeries at free of cost in their respective cities and towns but also the victims may no longer have to travel far for the treatment as they could easily avail it from their nearby doctor.

This hair transplant procedures at private hospitals would cost around one lakh to three lakh, which is way beyond the pockets of many acid and burn victims. Government Stanley Medical College Hospital, in a first of its kind is providing these services for free, not only that they have also been performing deformities correction procedures like neck extension for years.

There are many young, underprivileged acid attack victims whose face is disfigured in the attack. Some of them even don’t know if the hair transplant comes under cosmetic and plastic surgery. Eyebrows, eyelashes and hair line is important for burn and acid attack victims as it would make their appearance better- Pragya Prasun, founder of Atijeevan Foundation in Bengaluru, an organization that rehabilitates acid attack survivors

The surgeries will be done under Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme, which is the flagship scheme for mass health insurance in Tamil Nadu.

We hope many more hospitals take a cue from them and provide such necessary procedures for free, helping the victims regain their confidence and lead a good life.